Many industrial and vehicular systems require both power and data to be provided to a sensor or actuator. For example, systems have been proposed in which a plurality of sensors and actuators are provided in individual zones of a control system.
In the proposed systems, each individual actuator requires its own power supply, whilst individual zone of the control system is provided with a plurality of sensors which provide data to a central data network of a host system. The central data network, which is typically a conventional data network, in turn provides control signals to the individual actuators, to control their operation.
The data signals transmitted by the sensors to the central data network and from the central data network to the individual actuators are carried by dedicated wired data connections. It will be appreciated that in control systems within large structures such as an aircraft wing, a significant amount of electrical cable is required for the wired data connections, which adds to the weight and cost of the structure.